


The Sweet Bye and Bye

by wilhelmina_murray



Category: The Devil All the Time (2020)
Genre: 1940s, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:47:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27046723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wilhelmina_murray/pseuds/wilhelmina_murray
Summary: This is a rather long one-shot filling in some of the blanks in Willard and Charlotte's relationship, leading to their marriage.
Relationships: Willard Russell/Charlotte Russell
Kudos: 19





	The Sweet Bye and Bye

**Author's Note:**

> Just a few notes before the story. 
> 
> Bill Skarsgard absolutely tore my heart out in this film. And I have to say his accent was spot-freaking-on. My grandparents are actually originally from the part of West Virginia where the fictional town of Coal Creek would have been, and their manner of speaking is very similar to his. I found that incredibly impressive, given that he is a non-native English speaker. His accent I found similar in authenticity to Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs.
> 
> And yes, Gramma made fried chicken livers just like Emma (although I never cared for them).
> 
> I wanted to give a little more meat to Willard and Charlotte's part of the story. If she was the most important thing in his entire world, even more than, tragically, his own son, I wanted to try to figure out why. I hope this does some kind of justice to it.
> 
> Please leave a comment if you enjoy this, or if you think it needs work (I'm always looking to improve). Or just to let me know that you love chicken livers. :)

Willard Russell listened to the sounds of the bus and thought of home. Perhaps his mother would have his favorite cornbread, or apple dumplings. Honestly, though, every meal he’d had since hitting the beach stateside tasted like a king’s feast after so many K-rations. One could only eat Spam on crackers in the jungle heat for so long. 

He was happy to be back, relieved, but he’d spent so much time afraid, so much time in the heat, in the filth. He’d spent so many sleepless nights. Eaten so many goddamn K-rations. He’d and the others had seen too many days where the most they could look forward to was staying alive and whole, and having their chocolate and cigarette rations at the end of the day. He’d seen his good friend, Bobby Pratt shot in the throat at Guadalcanal; he’d drowned in his own blood. He’d seen so many of his men killed, and that didn’t even begin to touch what he’d felt when they found Gunnery Sergeant Miller Jones. 

Willard closed his eyes against the memory, pushing it away, pushing it down, fighting that feeling of electricity in his guts. 

He’d felt strange since landing stateside. Everything was wonderful, a miracle, from a soft bed in a cool room, to a chicken dinner, to a shower and clean socks. He wanted to thank everyone for everything, and yet all the civilians knew these luxuries all the time. Their complacency filled him with near-constant anger. He could barely control the urge to shake people and shout: “Don’t you know what you have?! Don’t you know what a gift this is?!”

“Next stop, Meade, Ohio,” the bus driver announced. “We’ll have a forty minute break for lunch, folks.”

Willard was glad of the chance to stretch his legs. He’d be on this bus the rest of the day, all the way to Lewisburg, where Uncle Earskell would meet him. He looked at his watch. It was coming on noon. He could use a cup of coffee. He had no appetite for lunch. His eyes had been bigger than his stomach that morning, and he’d overdone it at breakfast. 

He stepped off the bus and into the fresh air. Across the street from the bus stop was a little diner called the Wooden Spoon Café. 

He walked into the crowded diner, and saw an empty stool at the counter. He almost bumped into another gentleman with a camera heading to the same stool. The man saw Willard’s uniform and stepped out of the way. “Please,” he said, making a sweeping gesture to the stool.

“Thank you,” Willard replied, sitting on the stool and removing his cap. He lit a cigarette and waited, smelling coffee and bacon and meatloaf.

He looked up and saw a face that made his heart flip-flop and all the spit dry up in his mouth. That had never happened to him once, even at Guadalcanal. 

“What can I getcha?” the waitress asked. “Meatloaf is the blue plate special.”

Willard was lost. After all the pain, filth, and death and darkness he’d lived through, he’d never seen anything so beautiful as her face. She was fair and clean-scrubbed. Her plump cheeks were naturally rosy, her lips a soft pink. Her reddish hair made him think of a picture of Rita Haworth that hung over Bobby Pratt’s bunk in the old barracks. Her figure was a dream of Mae West come to life and standing right in front of him. 

He found himself fumbling to speak. “Um… Just coffee and a donut.” She nodded with a small smile and turned to fetch it for him. 

Willard smoothed his hair. His heart was jack-hammering like he’d been in a fire-fight. When she returned with his coffee and sugar donut, he spoke again, but his voice was barely a husky whisper. “Thank you. That’s really fine.” Honestly, she could have handed him a cow pie on a plate and he would have thanked her.

She smiled softly at him again, and he thought he’d do anything to make her smile like that for the rest of his life. 

And then the bell above the café door dinged and she turned from him, a look of concern on her face. A man who looked as if he hadn’t bathed in quite a long time stood at the door. His shirt was pinned up on one side where his arm was missing above the elbow. 

Willard knew a hobo when he saw one. His mother had helped several men riding the rails before the war. Sometimes the men were so skinny, they looked like scarecrows that had come to life and wandered out of someone’s field looking for a handout. Emma Russell never let them leave without something, even if it was just a biscuit or a potato. “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares,” she’d say. “That’s the scripture.”

The café manager was shouting at the hobo. “No, no, no! Get out! I told you last time…”

“I’m a good Christian man,” the hobo said. The café owner pushed him out the door. “Fuckin’ heathens!” he called back.

“Excuse me,” the waitress said, flustered. “I’m just going to take my break outside.” She placed his check down quickly, and turned to leave through the kitchen door. 

Willard wanted to ask her to stay, to say anything at all, but she was gone with another soft smile. 

He’d never finished coffee and a donut faster in his life.

And he left a dollar tip for her with his dime.

He practically ran out of the café trying to find her. And there she was, just around the corner of the café. She was handing a wrapped sandwich to the hobo. “Thank you. God bless you,” the hobo said, and she nodded to him with a smile. 

Willard’s heart flip-flopped again. So she entertained angels too. 

She leaned against the brick wall of the café, putting a cigarette to her lips. She looked his way then, and Willard looked away pulling out his own cigarette, a poor attempt to hide the fact that he’d been staring. He lit his cigarette when she spoke to him. “Did you need anything else?”

“No, I’m fine,” he chuckled. She smiled at him again, and the butterfly feeling inside him turned into a bittersweet ache. “That was nice… what you did,” he said, walking toward her.

“Some people just need a little help once in a while,” she said. “You know what I mean?”

“Yup,” he replied. They stared at each other in silence again, and though Willard felt so many swirling things, the silence didn’t feel uncomfortable. 

“You back home from the war?” she asked at last.

“I’m just passing through,” he said. “I’m on my way to West Virginia. My people are from Coal Creek.”

“That’s too bad,” she said. “You have a nice face.”

He chuckled and could feel himself blushing. They each took another drag, holding one another in their eyes. He wanted to tell her that her face was more than nice, that her face was like a painting of an angel from his mother’s Bible, that her face erased all the ugliness from his mind, that he wanted to look at her face for the rest of his life, but the words wouldn’t come. 

She dropped her cigarette and crushed it out with her shoe. “Well,” she said, “it was nice to meet you.” She turned and walked back into the café through the kitchen door.

“It was nice to have met you too,” he called after her.

Willard’s decision to leave Coal Creek and move to Meade was made on the day he’d always think of as “Spider Sunday.” He’d already been on edge since he and his mother arrived at church. The rough cross that hung on the wall above the pulpit brought back that feeling of nausea as flashes of Miller Jones assaulted his mind. And then his mother had practically thrown Helen Hatton at him, her ham-fisted match making attempts caused his blood to boil. When he looked at the waitress in Meade he’d seen an angel. When he looked at Helen Hatton, he saw only a girl, a mousy girl who seemed to be a humorless, milk-toast mirror image of his mother. 

And then Roy Laferty and his wheelchair bound brother had come with their spiders. He’d heard of churches in the hollers where folks tested God by handling snakes or drinking strychnine, but as his mother had said, it seemed that was contrary to the scriptures. People weren’t supposed to test God. Willard found the hypocrisy of it insane. Plenty of Christian boys had their heads blown off, boys whose faith ran deeper than his. That didn’t mean their faith was less than these two madmen. 

Willard at least could laugh about it in the car with his mother on the way home from church. But then she had to bring up Helen again, and his anger began to simmer once more. “She might have come with us, if you’d paid her a little more attention,” Emma said. “The right man would make a good life for Helen.”

He wanted to shout at his mother that Helen was a grown woman, and that he’d never marry someone to “take care” of them. That felt too much like a father and child than a husband and wife, and the thought made his skin crawl. But he couldn’t shout at his mother. That just wasn’t done. So he said nothing. 

And he left for Meade the very next day.

On Monday evening, after his ten hour drive from Coal Creek, he got a room at the Meade Guesthouse. His mother had told him he was crazy, that he had no job and no plan, and she was right on all three counts. But in his heart he knew he was in love, and there was no escaping that.

Tuesday at lunch time, exactly a week from the day he’s first seen his angel, he walked back into the Wooden Spoon Café. 

And there she was, standing at the kitchen window in her white uniform, her reddish hair pinned above her ears. His heart felt warm and tight at the sight of her. He took the same stool. 

She must have seen him from the corner of her eye. “Be right there,” she said.

“I ain’t in no rush,” he replied.

She turned to him, then, with a beaming smile, and if he didn’t love her before, than smile would have sealed the deal. “Why if it isn’t…”

“I never got your name,” Willard said.

And a voice from the kitchen gave it to him. “Charlotte, second call on chicken over peas.”

Charlotte turned and grabbed a plate, as she carried it to another table, she called back to him. “Be right back with you, hon.” And her eyes stayed on him as she walked past him to the lunch table. For the first time in a very long time, Willard felt really and truly happy.

Then she appeared again in front of him, and Willard was content to smile at her as she smiled at him. “I thought I’d never see your face around here again,” Charlotte said.

“I wanted to get your name,” he replied. “But now I know it… Charlotte.”

“Charlotte Willoughby,” she said, and she put her hand out. Willard didn’t shake it, but took her hand in his, softly, running his thumb over the backs of her knuckles. It was like he could feel a pleasant current of electricity passing through their hands. Charlotte must have felt it too; she was holding her breath. 

“I’m Willard. Russell.” He let go of her hand. He didn’t want to. If it were his choice, he’d never go another second without touching her. 

She smiled again. “So, are you just Willard? Or are you Will or Willie or Bill?”

“I’ve always just been Willard,” he replied. “But I reckon you can call me whatever you like.”

“I think I’ll call you Will,” she said with a wink that made his blood warm, “like Will Rogers. You’ve got pretty bright eyes like him.” She seemed to have said more than she’d intended, as the rosy color in her cheeks deepened to a gorgeous shade, and she fumbled for her notepad. “What can I getcha, Will?

“Bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich,” he said. “Cup of coffee. And I’d like to take you out.”

“You want that on white bread or whole wheat... Wait, what did you say?”

“White bread, please,” he said with a half-smile. “And I said I’d like to take you out.” He watched with happiness and something like relief when he saw the wide smile return to her face. “I saw a soda fountain down the way. I’d like to buy you an ice cream float. Do you like ice cream floats?”

“I do,” she said, looking furtively at the café manager. “I’ll just get your sandwich and coffee.” When the manager turned away, she whispered to him. “I finish up at three. Can I meet you there at four o’clock?”

“Yeah,” he said, a silly smile blooming on his face. “That’d be real fine.”

The bacon on his sandwich was half-burnt and the tomato was mushy, but it was the best sandwich he’d ever had in his life.

Willard finished his second cigarette outside of Allyn’s Pharmacy and Soda Fountain when he saw her coming down the sidewalk, her smile stunning him from a block away. Her dress was light blue and decorated with hundreds of tiny bright red flowers, and there was a blue ribbon in her hair that made her reddish hair look even redder. By the time she reached him, they were both smiling like fools. 

“Well, hello stranger!” Charlotte quipped.

“You look beautiful,” Willard said, and she blushed again. 

“Well, thank you,” she said. “And you’re quite the looker yourself. That’s a fetching hat.”

Willard looked up at his brown fedora as if he’d forgotten it was there. And then it was his turn to blush. “I promised you an ice cream float,” he said.

“That you did, sir,” she said.

“Well, I gotta keep my promises,” Willard said, and opened the door of Allyn’s for her. 

He led her to a couple of stools at the fountain counter, and a gentleman in white wedge cap and jacket greeted them. “Hello there, folks!” he said. “What’ll ya have?”

“Two ice cream floats,” Willard replied. “What kind do you like?” he asked Charlotte.

“Oh, um, orange with vanilla ice cream,” she told the soda jerk.

“And I’ll have the same, but with Dr. Pepper,” Willard said.

“Coming up!”

Charlotte sighed and looked around. “It’s nice in here,” she said.

“You don’t come here much?” Willard asked.

“Well, it’s not every day a handsome soldier buys me an ice cream,” she said. “But no, I guess I haven’t been in here for years.”

“Why’s that?” he asked. It came out _whah zat_ , and Charlotte smiled at his accent.

“My Daddy used to take my sister and me for ice cream once a week when I was little,” she said, “but he passed when I was about ten. Then it was just Phyllis and me, and there’s wasn’t a lot of extra money for ice cream.”

“Oh, sorry,” he said. “What about your mother? I mean, if you don’t mind me askin’.”

“Oh no, she passed when I was a baby. I don’t remember her much.” She smiled again. “But what about you?” she asked. “You saw your family in Coal Creek? Where’s that?”

“Oh, it’s about a ten hour drive. It’s just outside of Lewisburg.”

“Ten hours?!” she exclaimed, half-laughing. “You drove ten hours just to buy me an ice cream?”

The soda jerk returned then, with two floats in tall glasses, each with a straw and a long spoon. “There you are, folks,” he said. “That’ll be eighty cents.” Willard laid his coins on the counter, and waited until the gentlemen stepped away.

“Tell you the truth, I’d drive for a week to buy you an ice cream,” he said.

She smiled at him, and he couldn’t tell whether she was impressed or thought he was crazy. He got his answer when she spoke. “Well, that’s just about the nicest thing…” she trailed off, but her smile could have lit the sky if the sun went out.

While they finished their floats, Willard learned that Charlotte was twenty years old, a year younger than him, and was all alone. Her parents had passed, and when she was seventeen and graduated high school, her older sister gave her the keys to their tiny three-room apartment and said “I raised you, and now I’m going to live my life.” Charlotte had barely received a postcard from her since.

Willard told her about his mother and his Uncle Earskell, about how his father had succumbed to black lung when he was fifteen, after years of working in the coal fields in Bellwood. How Willard joined the army at seventeen, lying about his age, as a chance to earn a living outside of the poison blackness of the mines. 

They stayed in the soda fountain much longer than planned, and when they wanted to keep talking, they took a walk through town.

It was easy. For someone like Willard, who found talking to be a chore worse than hauling a wheelbarrow of #5 coal, it was damn near a miracle that he was able to be so free with Charlotte. And that ease made him talk of things about his family and himself that no date he’d ever had would be able to draw from him.

Charlotte seemed equally comfortable with him. She joked that she was giving him her life story, like a character on Perry Mason on the radio, but Willard found he _wanted_ to know everything. 

Hours passed, and they walked back to the Wooden Spoon for a late dinner of hamburgers and pie. 

“Spiders?!” Charlotte laughed, though her eyes looked horrified. “You’re pulling my leg!”

“No, ma’am,” Willard laughed. “I’m tellin’ you, he poured a whole jar of spiders right on his face. Great, big nasty ones. Mama said she wouldn’t sleep for a week.”

“Oh my,” she said. “I don’t know if I would either, if I saw that!”

The customers in the Wooden Spoon cleared out as they talked. Their table was the last occupied spot in the whole place. Their hamburgers were long-finished and the piece of pecan pie between them was gone. “I suppose we oughta go,” Charlotte said. She leaned closer to him and whispered: “I think Carl’s giving us the evil eye.”

“I’ll walk you home,” Willard offered. “You know… It’s gettin’ dark and all.”

“Sure,” she said. 

He held the door for her as they left, and she slipped her hand through his arm as they walked. The night was cool but pleasant, and her hand was warm, and Willard thought that there wasn’t any place in the world he’d rather be than right here right now.

It was only a few blocks to her apartment, a small unmarked door next to Flushing’s General Store. They stopped in front of it. Willard took her hand from his arm and held it in his.

“I had so much fun today,” Charlotte said. “I don’t know when I’ve talked so much. You’ll have an earache.” Willard chuckled. “But it’s so late,” she said. “It’ll be tomorrow before you get home.”

“Naw, I got a room at the Guesthouse,” he said.

“You did?” she said.

“Yeah,” he replied. “I thought I might stay in Meade a while.”

“I’m glad,” Charlotte said. She stood on her tiptoes, reached up, and kissed his cheek. Her lips were soft, like flower petals, and her perfume was like the lilac bush at his grandmother’s house in high summer. Willard’s chest squeezed in his chest so tight, he thought he might die. “Goodnight, Will,” she whispered.

“Goodnight, Charlotte,” he replied. And her eyes stayed with him as she slowly shut the door. 

Friday night Willard took Charlotte to the Majestic Theater to see “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” starring George Sanders and Donna Reed. Charlotte was thrilled, and so was he. Going to the movies, or the pictures as his mother called them, was a rare treat for both of them. 

Charlotte wore a red dress with white flowers that hugged every curve, and when Willard met her at her door, he was afraid he’d audibly gulped. 

She had the face of an angel, and a heart of gold, but that dress had him thinking of Jane Russell in “The Outlaw.” He’d seen it at a USO screening, and the army boys had lost their minds. He tried to think respectable thoughts, but as they walked, he kept glancing down at the curve of her bosom, the sharp flare of her hips. Her hand was warm on his arm again, and he found himself wondering what the rest of her skin felt like. The lilac smell of her perfume made him wonder if she dotted it between her breasts, and if he could taste it if he kissed her there. His thoughts were anything but Christian.

They got their tickets, a bag of popcorn and bottle of R.C. Cola to share. When the lights went down, and the movie began, Charlotte scooted closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder. Willard’s heart began to pound.

Willard enjoyed the film, he enjoyed the popcorn, but most of all, he enjoyed putting his arm around Charlotte and breathing in her lilacs. He was happy and the world was fine.

Until…

The climax of the film came, and Dorian Gray stabbed his own cursed portrait. His friends and lady love burst into the room just in time to see the portrait become young again, and to see Dorian’s dead body fall. The corpse’s face was diseased, grotesque. Charlotte gasped. Willard looked at the screen and didn’t see the made-up face of some movie star. On the screen was the half-skinned face of Gunnery Sergeant Milller Jones, covered with bloated black flies and gasping in pain. 

Willard began to panic. His heart hammered painfully in his chest, sweat broke out over him, and his breath was coming in pants. He stood from his seat, fighting dizziness and walked out into the lobby.

“Will?” Charlotte whispered after him. 

He needed air. He needed cool air. The inside of the movie theater suddenly felt like the jungle again. He burst through the lobby doors and out into the night, feeling that helpless panic, that senseless all-consuming rage. 

Charlotte was out after him a moment later. “Will, are you alright?” she asked.

He couldn’t answer her. He couldn’t speak.

“Will, I’m just going to put my hands on your arms now. Is that alright?” Her voice was low, calm. He nodded, and she put her soft, warm hands on his forearms, rubbing lightly over the skin where he’d rolled up his shirtsleeves. “I want you to take a big deep breath with me now, alright? Like this.” She breathed deep in, and blew in out slowly. Willard tried to follow her. “Now, look around. I want you to tell me what you see. You tell me right out loud.”

Willard tried to focus. “We’re outside that movie theater. There’s some spilled popcorn on the sidewalk. There’s a blue pickup truck.” He actually felt the panic subsiding. He wasn’t boiling hot anymore. He couldn’t hear the flies. He looked at Charlotte like she’d just weaved a magic spell. “And there’s you. And you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” She smiled, softly. “How did you do that?”

“My Daddy was a doughboy in France in the Great War,” she said. “Sometimes he’d feel like he was back there again. Talking about what was here and real helped bring him back. Phyllis and I used to help him do it.”

Will (it was the first time he’d ever thought of that as his name in his mind) was amazed. She was amazing. He’d felt that panicking rage before, and it would take him down into its depths for hours with the smell of rot and the sound of flies. But she’d stopped it. She’d lifted him up like Peter when he sank in the waves and Christ caught his hand. She was everything good in the whole world.

“I love you,” he blurted.

Charlotte grinned and laughed. “What?”

“I do,” he said. And he found himself smiling too, another miracle. “I fell in love as soon as I saw you, just like in a song.”

“You sure you ain’t crazy?” she teased.

“I might be,” he said. “But that don’t mean I don’t love you.”

“I think you might be sweetest boy in the world,” she said.

“And I think I’m going to kiss you now,” he said, and pulled her to him. His mouth met hers and she melted against him. He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her close, and she threw her arms around his neck. Her lips seemed softer now than they’d felt against his cheek. They were so soft and so warm. And she was soft, and he wanted to kiss her on and on and never leave. She kissed him back with equal measure, her lips moving over his, and when he squeezed her tighter, she made a little moaning sound in the back of her throat. The sound seemed to turn a dial in him from pure love to pure lust. 

His blood felt hot, and was rushing away from his brain to other parts of him. He broke the kiss to collect himself, and rested his forehead against hers, panting. Her cheeks were flushed that gorgeous shade of rosy red in the theater lights. 

“I reckon I’d better walk you home before I ruin your reputation,” he said.

Charlotte laughed, softly. “I believe you’re right,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to ruin yours either.” She looked up at him, her arms still around his neck. “Do you really love me, Will?”

“May God strike me dead, if I’m lyin’,” he said.

“Well, then maybe we’re both crazy fools,” she said.

His heart jack-hammered. “You love me?” he asked, his voice a husky shocked whisper.

“I believe I do,” she said with a smile. And he kissed her again. He couldn’t help himself. She loved him. The world was new, and the madness was over, and he was whole and she was everything. 

They only broke their kiss when some fourteen year old kid wolf-whistled at them. “Let me walk you home,” he said.

He kissed her again outside her apartment, and letting that door close between them was the hardest thing he’d ever done.

Will thought his heart would go into vapor-lock any second. His mother had made them a picnic lunch as he’d asked, and now they sat on an old blanket in a secluded clearing in the forest a half-mile or so from the house he grew up in. 

He’d brought Charlotte to meet his mother yesterday evening. It was Saturday, just a week after their trip to the movies. After their long drive in his truck, Emma made them a supper of chicken and dumplings and a blackberry cobbler. Will had wondered if his mother would be cold or disapproving of Charlotte, as she’d pushed him so hard in the direction of Helen Hatton. But that wasn’t the case at all. Emma was quite kind and friendly with Charlotte. Apparently, Helen had taken up with the Spider Reverend Roy Laferty, and so in Emma’s mind that ship had sailed. And Emma was a sucker for hard luck cases, and Charlotte’s family situation made her heart bleed. By the end of supper, Emma and Charlotte got on like a house fire. 

Charlotte slept in his bed that night, while he bunked with Uncle Earskell. 

They’d gone to Sunday worship with his mother, and the whole congregation seemed to fall in love with Charlotte too. Will smiled. She was his girl, and all the folks in church seemed to think she was an angel. It was the first time in a very long time that Will stood before the cross and didn’t feel the ghost of Miller Jones behind his eyes.

Charlotte leaned back on her palms, turning her face up to the sunshine. Her pink Sunday dress made her look like a flower in the light, the white buttons that formed a line down the front of her dress twinkled like pearls. They’d finished their ham sandwiches, their apples, their bottles of Dr. Pepper. Will sat next to her, trying to calm his heart.

Charlotte looked at him, almost as if she were reading his mind. “You alright, darlin’?” she asked. “You look like you’re about to jump out of your skin.”

He chucked, nervously, and moved closer to her, kneeling on the blanket, facing her. “Charlotte, you know I love you,” he said.

“Of course, I do, you fool,” she laughed. “I love you too.”

He reached into his pocket. “Do you love me enough to marry me?” he asked, pulling out the small ruby and gold ring he’d been hiding. Charlotte’s mouth dropped open. “If you’d be my wife I think maybe I won’t never need anything else in the world.”

Charlotte’s smile could have just about made his heart burst. “Yes, Will Russell,” she said. “I believe I will.” 

He laughed and she laughed, and he felt more joy than he ever had a right to feel. He put the ring on her finger, and she took his face in her hands and kissed him deeply. 

Will kissed her with everything he had, all the love, all the hope, all the desire within him. His arms wrapped around her, and crushed her against him. Her breasts pressed against his chest and her hands fisted in the back of his shirt. He laid her backwards onto the blanket, holding his weight over her, and when their kiss broke, he moved his lips over her jaw, down the line of her throat, over her pulse point. She panted beneath him. 

He wanted her. Oh, how he wanted her. He’d been with women before. Twice he’d been with prostitutes in the Pacific. His captain had actually paid for the first one, and gave him a handful of rubbers on his way into the brothel. He’d been smart to always use them too, not like Bobby, who’d caught a case of the clap. And there was a Victory Girl named Betty in California when he arrived stateside. She’d been a minx who’d taught him more about women than he’d ever learn from an anatomy textbook. But with Charlotte, everything was new and different. He knew how he’d feel making love to her, but he wanted her to feel good too. In fact, that may have been the most important thing to him. 

He kissed her mouth again and looked down at her, her plump lips, her rosy cheeks. “I…” he stammered. “I want to… to be with you… to make love to you.” He swallowed hard. “But I want to wait too.”

Charlotte smiled, softly and stroked his cheek. “I know,” she said. “I want that too, but I… I’ve never… and I want the first time we’re together as man and woman to be our wedding night.”

He nodded, his eyes closed, collecting himself. “I want to… to do something for you… to make you feel good. Will you let me touch you?”

She blushed deeper, and she bit her lip. She nodded. 

Will’s hands went to the button at the top of her dress, slipping each one through the button holes. He kissed softly down each inch of exposed flesh that appeared. The lilac scent of her made his head spin. Her plain white bra was exposed, and further to her soft belly, that shuddered beneath his lips as kissed her. As he opened the last button, Charlotte’s dress fell to the sides of her, and she lay on the blanket, her bra, her panties, garters and stockings visible to him. She was better than any pin-up. She was perfect. “You are so beautiful,” he breathed. 

He kissed her mouth again, laying on his side against her. His hand pulled a strap of her bra down, and he slipped his fingers beneath the cup, cupping her bare breast. Charlotte gasped into his mouth and panted against his lips as his fingered circled her hardening nipple. “Ah,” she let out a little breathy moan against his mouth.

“Does this feel good?” he asked, softly. 

“Yes,” she whispered. 

He did the same to her other breast, drawing little gasps from her, watching her face and neck flush. He pulled his hand from her bra, and he swore she almost pouted. Then he ran his hand down the length of her stomach and slipped his hand beneath her slip, running his palm over the hot center of her over her silk panties. She let out a soft little whimper then, “Mmmm.” The fabric was dampening under his hand as he stroked her. 

“I want to take these off,” he said. “Can I do that? Just to touch you, I promise.”

Charlotte nodded, frantically. He kneeled at her feet, hooked his fingers beneath her slip and panties and slid them down and off her legs. Charlotte lifted her hips to help him. And the downy reddish hair of her womanhood was bare to him below her garter and between in the belts that held her stockings. Will sucked his bottom lip into his mouth. 

He touched her there, softly, petting through her hair there so gently, and Charlotte panted and canted her hips toward his hand. He dipped his fingers into her folds and she was so hot, so wet. She gasped as he touched her, running his fingers over her slit. He slipped one long finger into her, and she moaned, softly. He worked his finger in and out of her, feeling the tight heat, that slickness, watching her face as her mouth fell open and her eyes closed. He opened her with his opposite hand, and brought his fingers up through her wetness to the swollen hard button of flesh at the top of her cleft, pressing and circling it. Charlotte cried out at his action. “Oh, oh, yes, Will, yes,” she panted.

“Is that good?” he asked.

“Yes… oh… please,” she breathed.

He moved his fingers faster against her, and hers hips bucked against his involuntarily. Her back was arching, the flush of her face had moved down her neck to her chest. Her bucking combined with the lowered straps of her bra made the cups slip down, and part of one sweet pink nipple was peeking from under the white fabric. He never seen anything so wanton and so utterly lovely.

“I… I… I…” she was babbling.

“Should I stop?” he asked.

“No-oh… please… don’t stop… I… I… mmm...” And then she shook violently, her voice calling out with a long “ohhhhh.” Her folds seemed to flutter against his hands.

It was the most otherworldly thing he’d ever seen, and he wanted nothing more than to make it happen every moment he could.

Charlotte came back to herself with long panting breaths. And Will kissed her again. She kissed him back, hard and pulled at his shirt like a wildcat. She moved her lips to his ear. “I want to touch you too,” she breathed. 

He groaned for a moment. “You don’t have to,” he said.

“You gave me the most wonderful thing,” she said. “I want to do it for you.”

She pushed him up to sitting, unmindful of the fact that she was still exposed. She opened the buttons of his shirt, pushing it off his shoulders until he was only in his white strapped undershirt. She pulled his belt free of the loops and opened the button and zipper of his trousers. She pulled him up to his knees, and pushed his trousers and shorts down just to enough for his painfully hard length to bob free. She looked at it, worrying a lip with her teeth. “I’ve never…” she trailed. “Can you show me? How to make you feel good?”

He took her hand softly in his, and brought it to himself, wrapping her fingers around him. He moved her hand over him, stroking as he did when he was alone and thinking of her. He looked down at her small white hand gripping him, feeling her squeeze him, lightly. It was so much. She kissed his throat as she stroked him. He was so hard, and her hand was so smooth, and when he opened his eyes, he could still see her bare pussy between her garter belts, shining with her wetness. And he thought of sliding into that tight, wet heat, and she was stroking him faster, tighter. And oh, he was going to come. He pulled away from her, and turned sideways, away from the blanket, taking himself in hand and spilling his spend onto the grass with a low groan.

Charlotte ran her hands over her back, cautiously. “Was that… was that alright?” she asked, her voice nervous.

He turned to her and took her face in his hands, kissing her softly, like a prayer. “It was perfect,” he said. “You’re perfect. I love you more than the whole world,” he said.

They were married in his mother’s church three weeks later. The ceremony was small, as Charlotte had no family to speak of. The guests were mainly Uncle Earskell, Emma, a few nearby relations, and congregants of the church. Charlotte’s dress was a simple white frock, and she’d bought white gloves and a white fascinator. Earskell walked her down the aisle in a suit, which he looked both adorable and terribly uncomfortable in, and Charlotte kissed his cheek when he gave her away. Her breath caught at the sight of Will in his dress uniform. He’d never looked so handsome, and his smile at her made him look so young, so happy.

She’d expected to be nervous, but she only felt warm and sure. Will had said he loved her from the first moment he saw her, and although it was crazy, she knew it to be true. She’d fallen not far behind him, that day at the soda fountain. 

The reception was cake and punch on picnic tables outside the church, and Will’s pickup truck was decorated with hanging cans and old shoes, “Just Married” soaped on the windows.

Charlotte stood in the bathroom of their hotel room in Lewisburg, looking into the mirror and trying to calm her heart. She thought she looked pretty enough. She was still wearing makeup from the wedding, an unusual thing for her, and white silky negligee she wore looked nice. It was a long nightgown and skimmed over her curves with a deep V neckline. She wore nothing underneath, and the feel of it on her skin was delicious. Her nipples were hard points beneath the fabric, and she was already throbbing between her legs. She knew what was about to finally happen with Will, and although she wanted him, she was also terrified. Phyllis had told her that a girl’s first time with a man could be painful, and there would be blood. Charlotte thought of when she’d touched Will in the forest, the large, hard length of him, and wondered how on God’s green Earth he was meant to fit inside her. But then she thought of Will’s soft eyes, and awe in his face as he’d touched her and brought her to that explosion of pleasure. He wouldn’t hurt her if he could possibly help it. She took a last deep breath, and opened the door. 

Will stood up from the bed as the door opened. His eyes widened and his mouth fell open, and Charlotte felt a rush of womanly pride at his reaction to her. She smiled at him, butterflies dancing in her belly. He was wearing his strapped undershirt and his pajama bottoms, and he looked terribly handsome. The muscles in his shoulders curved to his arms, his mouth was a soft pink, his green eyes deep like a pond in spring, even his bare feet seemed elegant.

She went to his arms, and he wrapped her up and held her for a long time, her arms around his middle. Then he pulled back and caressed her face with his rough hands. He brought his lips to hers and kissed her like a hero, like a prince in a fairy tale. He kissed her breathless, and Charlotte was flushed and panting when the kiss finally broke. He smiled down at her, and held her away at arm’s length for a moment. “You are so damn beautiful,” he said, reverently.

Charlotte’s eyes dropped, shyly. Will held her hand and turned her like they were dancing, looking over her silky nightgown. He wrapped his arms around her middle and pulled her back against him, his chest against her back. His dropped open mouthed kissed over her neck, her shoulder. Charlotte’s fingers combed into his hair behind her, the delicious feeling of his lips stoking a fire within her. Will’s hands cupped her breasts through the silk. His thumbs brushed the tight points of her nipples and Charlotte gasped. His hips pressed against her back, and Charlotte could feel the hard long line of his manhood. 

Will unfolded her from him, and turned her to face him again. His the dark centers of his eyes were blown so wide, they almost looked black. He hooked his fingers under the straps on either side of her nightgown, and drew them softly down her arms. The silk slipped softly over and off of her breasts until they were exposed to the cool air of the room and to his hungry gaze. Charlotte let the fabric slip from her arms, and the rest of the nightgown fell from her in a whisper onto the floor. 

She was completely naked before him. She’d never felt so shameless and so terribly excited. She wanted him to touch her, could have begged for it, but instead, she pulled at his undershirt. He lifted his arms and let her take it off him. She ran her fingertips over the strong lines of his torso, loving the way he panted at her touch. She pushed down his pajama pants, and they fell to the floor like her nightgown, his manhood pointing proudly at her. She barely had time to look over his nakedness before he swept her into his arms and kissed her again. The feeling of her skin against his was nothing she could describe, delicious, warm, electric. His hands roamed her skin as he turned and laid her on the bed, balancing his weight over her. 

His lips trailed down her neck again as she buried her hands in his hair. He dragged his lips over her collar bones, the swells of her breasts. He kissed one of her nipples softly, and she drew in breath, and when he pulled it into his mouth, laving it with his tongue, she found herself whimpering. It sent bolts of pleasure like a current straight to her center. And when he repeated the action with her opposite nipple, she found herself bucking her hips against him involuntarily. 

He opened her legs and settled his hips between them. He kissed her again as his hand trailed over her stomach, and down to through the soft hair at the apex of her. He fingers dragged through her wetness, and a moan tore her mouth away from his. He watched her face as found the hard little button of flesh that made her beg and shake. He stroked it in firm, fast circles with his slick fingers. Charlotte bucked against him, unable to stop the panting moans that poured out of her. She was too excited, too throbbing, too full of that sweet sweet oh that sweet coiling ache. “Mmm, mmm, mmm,” she almost sobbed, and then it happened again, that clenching, fluttering explosion. She cried out against Will’s mouth. He kissed her all through the shakes as she came down from the clouds.

“Charlotte,” he said, softly. “Are you ready for me?”

“Yes,” she breathed.

“I don’t wanna hurt you,” he said. “So, you tell me if I need to stop.” He kissed her again, softly. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she said.

Will took himself in hand and lined himself against her sweet warm wet, and began to push forward, slowly so slowly. He gasped at the feel of her, and Charlotte’s breath stopped. Phyllis hadn’t lied about the hurt, but it wasn’t a stabbing, it was a stinging stretch. Will was large, and pushing inside, and she felt so filled, so terribly full. But her core was so slick, so sensitive that the terrible fullness was also exquisite. More and more, oh God she wanted to scream at the sting but oh that sting was so powerfully good. And then it was over. Will was seated inside her, panting, not moving. 

“Are you… mmm… are you alright?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, a tear slipping down the side of her face.

“I’ll stay right here,” he said. “I won’t move ‘til you say.”

After a view moments, the pain of him gave way to that hot feeling of fullness, and she wanted something… something more.

“I’m ready,” she said.

Will nodded, and withdrew a bit from her, and Charlotte felt the fullness change to an emptiness that made her gasp, and then he moved forward, filling her again, faster than before and it was so good. He moved again, again, again, and soon Charlotte began to move her hips with him, taking him deeper, moaning as he kissed her neck, her shoulder, her breast. He was thrusting faster now, and there was a liquid sound to their coupling. And Charlotte wanted this, more of this with him, as much as she could get. Will was panting, making little groans, and oh they were beautiful. “You feel… so… good…” he ground out.

“Yes, yes,” she breathed, as if it were the only word she knew anyone.

And then Will drove into her a last time, groaning loudly, reaching that moment she’d seen before, and she knew he was spending inside her. Her hands stroked the smooth skin of his back as he collapsed over her. After a moment, he withdrew from her, and she hissed at the feeling of sore emptiness.

“Are you alright?” he asked again, honest concern on his face.

“I’m more than alright,” she said with a tender smile.

Will lay down and pulled her to him, pillowing her head on his shoulder as he wrapped her in his arms. “It won’t hurt the next time,” he said.

“Good,” she replied. “Cause I think I’d like a lot more next times.”

He chuckled. “So would I.” He squeezed her. “I love you, wife.”

“I love you, husband.”

Will awoke in the night and looked down where Charlotte was curled against him, her hair mussed, her lips parted in sleep. The sheet had slipped down and one of her perfect pink nipples was visible. She was so beautiful it almost hurt to look at her, and he was again struck with the intensity of his love for her. 

He’d had a dream during the night, but for once it wasn’t a dream of Miller Jones and the flies, or of Bobby Pratt with his throat blown open. He was a boy again, playing with his dog, although he didn’t remember having a dog growing up. He was in the sunshine, and Charlotte was with him, and she was a child too, in pig tails and a worn red gingham dress. And it was a beautiful day and they were running in the grass together. 

Will looked at his sleeping wife, and believed in his heart that she alone kept the madness and darkness away. She protected him, like the angel with the flaming sword at the gates of Eden. She saved him. She made life worth living.

He bent and kissed her awake, and took her again in their marriage bed, and this time she reached her climax a moment before him.

Will and Charlotte were looking at the house at the top of the Mitchell Flats for the first time, when he felt the call to pray welling up inside him. He knew Charlotte loved the house right away, and Arvin was smiling gummily in her arms. And in the clearing by the fallen log in the forest, Will was suddenly afraid. _Too many blessings_ , he thought. He received too many blessings and hadn’t given thanks, hadn’t made his peace with God. He’d do it here. This place would be his church, and he’d thank God every day for what he’d been given… in case it could be taken away.

Arvin thought about the days leading up to his mother’s death, how Willard wanted so much for her to live. His father would have done anything to save her… And suddenly he realized, standing in his father’s church, that he’d had no other choice… that Willard needed to go wherever Charlotte went.


End file.
